“Make yourself small. Belittle your accomplishments, at least on my account.”
“Force of habit,” Cece says. “I guess I’m still figuring things out.”
“You ever wonder if that’s just life? Figuring things out? Like maybe there’s no moment where you eventually wake up and everything makes sense.”
The idea terrifies Cece, but she cracks a smile anyway. With Morgan here, now, such things seem possible. He’s different; he listens, not just to what she says, but how she says it. Cece gets the sense that Morgan would treat her the same whether she’d attended Harvard or the community college up in Norwich. And if she’s being honest with herself, which isn’t always the case, she doesn’t understand how someone can be so unpretentious and secure.
On their way back, Morgan wants to know why Lorraine hates him so much. Cece says thathate’s a strong word but that the ongoing house renovation isn’t earning him any allies in the neighborhood. There’s more to it, Morgan says, that she’d begrudge him even if he had the nicest house on the block. “All those professors act like the college is doing the town a favor,” he shouts over the chop of waves and whistling wind, “like the townies should be grateful for the part-time jobs in their dining hall.” There is a hard bitterness to his words, and for a moment, Cece wonders ifthisis the real Morgan, underneath the kind and mellow demeanor. She thinks about what Lorraine told her about the police showing up outside his house.
As quickly as it appears, Morgan’s hostility melts away, and he shrugs his shoulders, defeated, as if to say,This is just the way of the world. Heading up the river, Morgan lets Cece take the wheel and shows her how to read the water. He runs through the terminology: starboard, port, stern, and bow. Approaching the shipyard, he teaches her how to throttle down and remindsher to throw the rubber fenders over the side before bringing them up against the mussel-covered pilings. They walk the length of the boat, and Morgan instructs Cece on how to tie a bowline knot and then a cleat hitch, the rope heavy in her hands. He stands behind her, beard tickling her neck, and recites a trick to help her remember, his voice thrumming against her back: “Up through the rabbit hole, round the big tree; down through the rabbit hole, and off goes he.”
“Or she,” Cece says.
Morgan chuckles. “Or she.”
Cece leans back into him then, his chest sturdy and wide, and for the briefest of moments, she allows herself to imagine what this kind of life might be like—risk be damned.
6
The high season is in full swing in Mystic, Main Street already clogged with eager, boxy-shirted tourists weighed down with triple-scooped ice-cream cones and bags of saltwater taffy. On the sun-drenched sidewalk, crowds gather outside Mystic Pizza, snapping photos of the façade and peering inside, hands to the glass, as if Julia Roberts herself might appear, slinging pizza with her radiant smile and poofy ’80s hair.
The traffic is interminable, inching over the river at an agonizing pace. In front of Cece, a contractor drums an impatient beat with a paint-speckled hand against the side of his pickup truck. Kayakers and paddleboarders, necks and noses slick with sunblock, slip underneath the drawbridge, making their way upriver. Mystic, with its charm and whimsy, is nearly unrecognizable from its neighbors—Groton and New London—with their industrial ports and rugged self-reliance, and Cece wonders whether she’d be happier in a place like this, not that she can afford it!
The office for Rayburn Oyster Company sits on the secondfloor of a redbrick warehouse on Holmes Street. It’s Sunday afternoon, and Richie has summoned Cece to the office. He didn’t say what the meeting was about; he didn’t need to. The pressure washer had required significant repairs, and while Cece has proven herself capable to drive the company truck, she has no illusions about Santiago’s opinion of her. If anything, her responsibilities have shrunk, relegated to hosing down the boat, stacking crates, and tidying up. Despite her dwindling sense of usefulness, there have been little pleasures, of course, unexpected rewards: the way she collapses into bed and sleeps a dreamless sleep; the way her worries evaporate under the beating sun and whistling wind; the way blisters have transformed into thick calluses on her palms. There is nothing abstract or theoretical about this work; it is real, undeniable. Still, she wants more, more time on the water, a better understanding of the oysters themselves, these organisms they’re all working so hard to grow. Taking the stairs two at a time, stomach in her throat, Cece prepares for the worst.
Sitting behind a metal desk littered with papers and cascading manila folders, Richie, peering at the gargantuan monitor of his ancient desktop computer, appears indifferent to Cece’s presence. He gestures for her to sit down without taking his eyes away from the pixelated screen. There’s an audible crunch—a pretzel, a potato chip maybe—while Richie, muttering to himself, navigates the mouse on his crowded desk.
With shoulder-length gray hair and unruly sideburns, Richie doesn’t look like a Richie at all. When she’d answered the initial job listing, Cece was expecting someone much younger, someone wearing sneakers and khakis, a gingham button-down tuckedinto a rope belt. At the time, her only reference for oyster farmers were the occasional stories inThe New York Timesabout disillusioned millennials who’d given up their white-collar jobs to take over struggling agricultural businesses in an attempt to return to their agrarian roots. There were never any follow-up stories about these people, only their initial burst of inspiration, when hope sprang eternal, when every challenge and failure was an opportunity to learn. Cece can only assume this is the case because the ventures didn’t last long. Is she any different from these people? The fear lingers. Will she scuttle back to her old life whenever this performative venture has lost its luster? In the oyster business for nearly twenty-five years, Richie doesn’t share these concerns. He is a man whose only mission is to return the Sound and its tributaries to their former oyster glory, when bivalves once littered the banks and shoals, when the water was so clean it was said the Dutch could see straight to the bottom from their tall ships. He is a man obsessed, who cares for little, unless of course it concerns oysters. Sitting down at his desk, Cece hopes she can use this to her benefit, appealing to his passions rather than rationality, where she stands little chance of remaining employed.
While Cece sits, Richie pulls a pencil from behind his ear and looks over a yellow legal pad. A teardrop-shaped oyster shell dangles around his neck. Whatever is on the paper is displeasing, and he gnaws at the bottom of his already ragged lip. “You did a real number on the pressure washer.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Cece says hastily. She can’t get the words out fast enough. “It was a rookie mistake, and like I said before, just take out whatever you need to pay for it.”
“Don’t think you’ll have much left over.”
Cece swallows her panic and shrugs. “No worries,” she says, even though she’d been counting on the first paycheck from Rayburn to bolster her dwindling checking account. Breaking up with Jonathan had proven more costly than she’d anticipated. There’d been moving expenses and half the monthly rent for the remainder of the lease. Jonathan didn’t need the money; he’d even rejected it when she’d first offered. But she’d insisted. It was the principle of the matter. Then, of course, there’d been dog food for Bernard, an unforeseen car repair, and more than a few profligate purchases from the local wine store.
Richie pushes papers around on his desk.
“I’m good for it,” Cece says. If times get tough, or tougher than they already are, she can always draw on her 401(k). A proposition she can’t believe she’s considering, and for what, pride? After scrupulously saving for nearly a decade, she’s miraculously managed to build a modest nest egg. It was never too early to start saving for retirement. She truly believed that. When it came to getting old, money seemed like the great equalizer to Cece, the only tool at her disposal to combat the terrifying unknown future that was growing infirm in the United States of America…She must be nuts.
Finally meeting her gaze, Richie looks up and takes her in, his deep-set eyes lingering on her hands and shoulders, like she’s a racehorse past her prime. “We could just call it even. There’s no shame in cuttin’ your losses.”
When she’d climbed the rickety stairs to the Rayburn office, Cece had thought being fired was the worst outcome of the current conversation, but she’d been wrong. Being pitied by Richie is far, far worse. He feels bad for her, so bad that he’s willingto forgo a few thousand dollars—just to be rid of her. She’d rather he cuss her out, threaten to garnish her wages…anything but pity.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to stay on,” Cece says, annoyed by the quaver in her voice. Countless data presentations, panels moderated, conferences attended—and this, bizarrely, is the most nerve-wracking thing she’s done in recent memory. She’s never had to advocate for her own usefulness; the actuary exams did that—all seven of them. The very nature of actuary work was indispensable to the insurance industry. But this…her…She’s dispensable. There are a hundred people who could do a better job than her. That much has been proven.
A dubious frown works its way across Richie’s face. “Well…I—”
“At least let me pay you back in full for the pressure washer, and if you still want to let me go afterwards, I’ll go willingly.”
“I’m not really the one you need to convince.”
“Santiago.”
Richie nods.
“I’ll handle it,” Cece says, even though her determination is already crumbling.
